


this joy I have

by shellfishDimes



Category: FANXY CHILD (Band)
Genre: Canon Compliant, Champagne, Drunken Kissing, Fluff and Humor, M/M, Romantic Friendship
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-04
Updated: 2019-05-04
Packaged: 2020-02-18 12:54:31
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,308
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18700012
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/shellfishDimes/pseuds/shellfishDimes
Summary: Congratulations flood all his inboxes, and they keep coming. He lights another cigarette when a Kakao notification slides down from the top of his screen.Jiho says,Knew you could do it. I'm so proud of you.Makeup and sweat sticking to his tear-streaked face, Dongwook grins at the message.





	this joy I have

He wins.

He can feel the lump in his throat. And then he can't hold it in anymore, and he starts crying even as they're still filming. They crowd him, ask him if he's OK even as he's bent over, wheezing into his hands. The camera doesn't catch the face he makes when he can't keep it together, just the start of it, and the very end. 

He breaks down on live TV. Samuel Seo hugs him, and tells him he did well.

And he _wins._

The shakes from the adrenaline only stop when he's outside, on his second cigarette. His fingers still don't feel like his own when he scrolls through the flood of notifications on his phone.

Yongshin says, _Well done, hyung!_

Seungyhun sends him a video of his laptop screen, and him yelling in the background in the moment that Key announced the winner.

Hyoseob says, _Congratulations! Our Dongwookie!_

Gum sends him a screenshot of his inbox, with 73 unread messages. All of them are asking about Penomeco, what his schedule is like, if he wants to do a collaboration with this artist, if he would consider appearing on that show. Gum captions it with, _I'm not your manager, but well done! Setting up a redirect right now!_

Congratulations flood all his inboxes, and they keep coming. He lights another cigarette when a Kakao notification slides down from the top of his screen.

Jiho says, _Knew you could do it. I'm so proud of you._

Makeup and sweat sticking to his tear-streaked face, Dongwook grins at the message. 

And then he calls his mother, and she's already crying when she picks up the phone, and he cries again, too, because he _won._

Apro finds him leaning against the wall, wiping at his eyes with the sleeve of his jacket. Under the streetlights, with his hair pulled back from his face and his lips pulled back from his teeth in a smile, he looks prouder than Dongwook has ever seen him. 

Apro says, "Come on. Let's go celebrate." He puts an arm around Dongwook's shoulders, and Dongwook's heart leaps at the grin that Apro gives him. He thinks they call it glowing, maybe.

  


* * *

  


Jiho texts him again the next day, as Dongwook is in the car, stuck in traffic. _What's your door code?_

It's been raining for hours. The car windows are fogged up. _Don't break into my apartment. Yeontan will eat you,_ Dongwook writes. _I'm not home._ He can feel the humidity creeping deep into his hair. He checks it in the rear view mirror. It looks darker in places where it shouldn't.

The phone vibrates in his hand. Jiho says, _What about in an hour?_

Dongwook texts him the door code, and says, _In an hour._ And smiles at his reflection in the car window, and the Han outside, bloated with rainwater.

He sits in a meeting with his manager and the production team from the new season of High School Rapper. They want him to record a song with one of the contestants. They argue about the price, about the screen time, about the SNS coverage, the NDAs. He knows he can't yet afford to turn down jobs, he's not earning enough for that, but the negotiations are so circuitous and exhausting that he almost does. And then, one of the producers mentions this kid who's in the competition and a big fan of Fanxy Child, and Dongwook agrees to do it almost on the spot. 

His promised one hour ends up being two, and it's still raining when he gets home. The sun hasn't made an appearance for three days. There's leftover adrenaline buzzing under his skin from the day as he toes off his shoes at the door.

And then, he looks up to see his lights are on. 

He looks up to see Jiho sitting on his sofa, Yeontan's sleeping head resting on his thigh.

One of Jiho's hands is scratching Yeontan behind his ear. He has his phone in the other, scrolling through it.

Jiho looks up when Dongwook steps into the apartment. "Where have you been?" Yeontan raises his head, and jumps down from the sofa to greet Dongwook. "Also, there's no room in your fridge, so the champagne had to sit at room temperature." Dongwook notices the bottle of Dom Perignon on the floor by Jiho's feet. "Why do you have so much Coke?"

"I like Coke," Dongwook says. Yeontan, realising he won't get pets this time, loses interest in him. Dongwook stares at Jiho as the sound of Yeontan's tongue lapping water from his bowl comes from the other side of the apartment. "I'm changing my door code."

Jiho laughs. "Sure. Do you have glasses for this?"

Dongwook doesn't, but he has vintage style Coca Cola glasses, like the ones they used to have in American diners, way back. (Or at least that's what all the movies showed.) He puts his hands over his ears, and he still jumps when Jiho pops the cork on the champagne. It hits the ceiling, bounces off, and falls to the floor. Yeontan yips, and races after it. Dongwook's heart is still hammering from the shock of the cork popping as Jiho pours them the champagne. They toast, and when Jiho smiles at him, Dongwook feels like he's already drunk.

"How does it feel?" Jiho asks. They sit together on the sofa, Dongwook with both hands around his glass, and Jiho with his long legs up on the seat. His socks have the Ralph Lauren polo player stitched into them. Dongwook's socks have a little hole developing on the left heel.

The bubbles of the Dom Perignon fizz down Dongwook's throat when he swallows. "Unexpected?" He looks sidelong at Jiho. His hair is grown out, permed. Dusky blonde. It makes all his sharp edges look softer. It makes his eyes look warmer. "But, if that means you'll show up at my place with a bottle of champagne, I wish I'd won something sooner." Dongwook grins. 

"Do you know when I bought this?" Jiho raises his glass. "After the first episode."

Dongwook scoffs a laugh. "Don't fuck around."

"I'm not." Jiho shakes his head. "I told you. I knew you could do it."

"Hui—"

"A good kid. He's got talent." Jiho moves so that he's facing him. "But he's not you." One of his feet is on the floor now. The other is touching the inside of his knee. His jeans are tight over his thigh, and Dongwook wishes he didn't notice these things. Jiho leans against the sofa, an arm on the back of it. He rests his face against his hand. When Dongwook licks a drop of champagne from his lip, Jiho's eyes follow his tongue, even as it disappears back into his mouth. 

The bottle empties quick. Dongwook hasn't eaten all day, and the bubbles go to his head faster than he expected. They crackle on the surface of his tongue, soft like stale popping candy when he drinks, and tickle the roof of his mouth. Jiho finds the soju in his fridge, and Dongwook thinks it's probably some type of sin to cut Dom with thousand-won convenience store soju, but Jiho uncaps the first bottle with the carelessness of someone who hasn't had to think about how much money he's spending on anything for a long time.

Dongwook hangs onto the cap. He twists the metal strap and tries to flick it off, just so he has something to do with his hands. There's two empty soju bottles by the side of the sofa already, next to the empty bottle of champagne. The cork is still missing in action. He can't remember if he has anything more in the fridge that's not Coke, a half empty bag of shop bought kimchi, and a three day old box of fried chicken. His brain feels like a vignette, fading fuzzy at the corners. 

"Are you listening?" Jiho says. He laughs when Dongwook blinks at him, trying to focus. Jiho has been laughing a lot tonight, enough that his smile barely slips from his face. "I asked when your EP was coming out." Dongwook likes to believe he's one of the few people who gets to see this side of Woo Jiho. He likes to believe he's lucky. At least when it comes to things like seeing Woo Jiho with his guard down, face flushed and eyes shining with amusement.

"Ah, probably by the end of the year." Dongwook hums, thinking. "I want to see if I can get Hyoseob on one of the tracks."

"You want Crush?" Jiho raises his eyebrows. "Why not Zico?"

Dongwook flicks the soju cap. The strap barely moves. "I'm still not earning enough to afford you."

Jiho is sitting with his arm pillowed under his head, his gangly limbs dominating the sofa. Dongwook perches on the corner, knees pressed together. "I can give you a discount," Jiho says. His face is resting on his forearm and he blinks at Dongwook, slow, the way Dongwook has seen Yongshin's cats do when they're relaxed.

Dongwook clicks his tongue. "Come on, we agreed that's not how it works." They'd agreed at the very start that none of them would work together for anything other than a fair price. No favours, no freebies. If they were going to support each other, they were going to support each other with all they had, not just encouraging words and SNS posts. Those didn't pay the bills. 

"Okay, okay." Jiho sighs, like Dongwook is being difficult. "We can trade, then."

Dongwook flicks the cap again. The strap hits his fingernail painfully, but it moves this time. "Trade. Sure. For a song on that album you've been talking about for months, or…" He drags out the word.

"Or…" Jiho catches his tone, copies it, stretches the syllables like chewing gum. "A kiss for a song." He puckers his lips.

Dongwook snorts. "No." He tugs at the strap on the soju cap, trying to pull it off, but it won't budge. It feels like they're sitting awfully close, all of a sudden. "You look like those fish they sell at the market."

Jiho stretches his lips into a grin, and Dongwook tries, he really does, to not think about how handsome it makes his face look. "Tasty?"

"Slimy and creepy," Dongwook says, doubling down, and Jiho laughs, teeth straight and white, eyes squeezing. 

Their faces are close, and Dongwook hadn't even realised he'd leaned closer to Jiho. If he sits up straight, he'll lose his balance and fall back off the sofa. Or that's what it seems like, at least, like this position is the only one that doesn't make him feel like he'll tumble to the floor. 

"Too bad that's how you feel," Jiho says. His breath is warm on Dongwook's face. It smells like convenience store soju, and a little bit like expensive champagne. "I think you're handsome."

"Do you?" The only reason Dongwook's hand is on Jiho's thigh is because he has to have something to hold on to, and the sofa is too small, and they're sitting too close for him to put his hand anywhere else. 

Jiho unfolds his arm. Along the length of the back of the sofa. He picks at the seam on Dongwook's shoulder with his fingers. Dongwook moves his hand on Jiho's thigh up, because he can feel himself leaning forward, and he doesn't want to lose his balance. His eyes flutter to Jiho's lips, as they fall open on Jiho saying, "I do."

When Dongwook kisses him, it's just a press of lips against lips. Jiho's are dry. His nose digs into Dongwook's cheek. His hand, the one picking at Dongwook's shirt, goes to the side of Dongwook's face, and Jiho tilts his head. 

The soju cap slips from Dongwook's fingers and clinks to the floor.

Jiho opens his mouth wide enough that his tongue can lick at Dongwook's lips, and Dongwook remembers to close his eyes before he catches Jiho's tongue with his own, sliding and slick.

Jiho holds onto his shoulder, his fingertips on the skin of Dongwook's neck, just above his collar. His thumb presses into a point on Dongwook's chest. Dongwook digs his fingers into the meat of Jiho's thigh, sudden and strong. Jiho arches into him, and the apartment is quiet, completely quiet except for the sound that Jiho's mouth makes when he moves away for a moment to take a breath, and then leans back in again, his tongue pressing against Dongwook's. 

It's longer than just one kiss. It's Dongwook's hands in Jiho's hair, and Jiho's teeth closing around Dongwook's lower lip, and it's Jiho's fingers tugging at Dongwook's shirt, keeping him close even when Dongwook has to break away, because he has to breathe.

"You're not fair," Dongwook says, over the sound of his heart singing. "That's not how you agree on collaborations." He has to take a pause between sentences to breathe, because Jiho's fingers are on the back of his neck, and he can feel that light up all his nerve endings, from the nape of his neck and all the way down. "I'm not doing it."

Jiho laughs. This time, Dongwook lets himself enjoy his dimples, the shape of his eyes when he smiles. "You can consider this a deposit, then," he says. "An investment into your future." He pats Dongwook's shoulder. "Congratulations."

Dongwook groans, trying to push his grin down. "Shut up." He peels Jiho's hand away from his shoulder, and it somehow ends up on his thigh.

"Okay," Jiho says, and he's smiling. "I have better things to do, anyway," and he leans in for another kiss. Dongwook pulls at his shirt, and they fall on the sofa and into each other, and Dongwook feels like he's won all over again.

**Author's Note:**

> my [twitter](http://twitter.com/doyoufanxy)! thanks for reading!


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